Multiple versions of textbooks in 2017 removed references to Bian Magpie on the grounds that they were unsure whether there was such a person. From the historically recorded deeds, the time span is almost 200 years, so the crowd deduced that maybe Bian Magpie was an organization included his disciples.
Why do people suspect that Bian Magpie was an organization? First, Bian Magpie's survival age, before and after the span of more than 200 years. As a generation of miracle doctors, there are no detailed records of Bian Magpie's life and death. However, from the historical records of Bian Magpie's deeds, we can surmise the approximate dates of his birth and death. The earliest case of Bian Magpie was treating Zhao Jianzi.
At the time of his visit, Zhao Jenzi had been in a coma for five days, and Bian Magpie said that Zhao Jenzi would surely wake up in less than three days, and that he would have something to say when he woke up. Sure enough, two and a half days later, Zhao Jianzi woke up. He told everyone that in the past few days, he was invited by the Heavenly Emperor to go on a tour. At that time, the Heavenly Emperor ordered him to shoot a bear and a warrior to death, and gave him two bamboo slips and a Zhai dog to pass on to his son in the future. I speculate that this was most likely Zhao Jianzi's way of revealing his own plans in the name of the Heavenly Emperor. However, whatever Zhao Jianzi's true thoughts were.
To outsiders, the magpie was the proper divine doctor. Later, Zhao Jianzi rewarded Bian Magpie with 40,000 mu of fields in Mozhou, Hebei. There are 2 points of information here: firstly, before Zhao Jenzi carried out his plan against Jin, Bian Magpie treated him; secondly, when Bian Magpie treated him, the land of Cao Prefecture was able to be rewarded by Zhao Jenzi as he wished.
According to historical records, it was only in 491 B.C. that Zhao Jenzi moved into Jinyang, and then captured Caozhou. It can be seen that the time when Bian Magpie treated Zhao Jianzi should be after 491 BC. The latest deed of Bian Magpie's treatment should be for King Wu of Qin, when he was assassinated by Li Yi, the order of the Imperial Physician, and eventually died. King Wu of Qin, Win Dang, reigned for four years in 329 BC.
He was born with divine power and ascended to the throne in 311 B.C. In 307 B.C., he died from lifting a tripod. When Bian Magpie treated Win Dang, the latter was already King Wu of Qin, so it can be seen that Bian Magpie should have treated him after 311 BC and before 307 BC.
Bian Magpie's earliest case was in 491 B.C., and his latest case was in 307 B.C., a difference of nearly 184 years. In addition, Bian Magpie was already an adult when he treated Zhao Jianzi. It can be seen that Bian Magpie's lifespan was already over 200 years old. As a healer, it is possible that Bian Magpie lived a long life, but a time span of 200 years is a bit exaggerated.
Be aware that Hua Tuo, the divine doctor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, only lived to be 63 years old; Zhang Zhongjing, the medical sage of the Eastern Han Dynasty, lived to be more than 60 years old; Li Shizhen, the Saint of Medicine of the Ming Dynasty, lived to be 75 years old; and Sun Simiao, the medical doctor of the Tang Dynasty, lived to be more than 100 years old. Moreover, from the historical data, the death of Bian Magpie was killed by an accidental conspiracy. In other words, if there was no assassination by Li Yi, the Imperial Doctor, he could have lived longer. Is this really possible?
Secondly, several of Bian Magpie's famous cases are mind-boggling. Bian Magpie is known as a household name, and his deeds have been widely publicized. But there are a few famous cases of magpies saving people's lives that are beyond belief.
Story 1: Heart transplantation. This is the most mind-boggling deed. According to legend, when Lu Gonghu and Zhao Qiying came to Bian Magpie for medical treatment, Bian Magpie made them drink a little bit of medicinal wine, and while they were sleeping, he performed a heart transplantation surgery for them. In no time, Lu Gonghu and Zhao Qiying awoke and soon returned home.
It is important to know that even in modern times, doctors have to perform a lot of operations before performing heart surgery, which requires the assistance of various medical images and instruments. After the surgery is completed, the patient still needs to recover for a long time. However, Bian Magpie performed the operation without using any anesthetic drugs or sterilizing the instruments, and completed this major surgery alone.
Story 2: Bian Magpie Saves the Prince of Guo. The story of how Bian Magpie saved the Prince of Guo is equally elusive. At that time, Bian Magpie drove to the State of Guo, and found that the whole country was in mourning, and when he asked about it, he realized that the crown prince had already passed away for half a day. The magpie grabbed the young eunuch and asked about the specifics of the crown prince, then went straight to the palace to save him, not realizing that he had really saved him.
These several stories look down, it is difficult to launch the magpie's medical skill, but everywhere feel magic. Third, the excavation of an ancient tomb in Chengdu has impacted people's perception of the magpie. The most powerful evidence of the doubts about the authenticity of the magpie is the unearthing of archaeological artifacts.
In 2013, Chengdu unearthed a Han tomb in Lao Guanshan, Tianhui Town. 2014 and 2017, experts published briefings on the basic conditions of the unearthed artifacts in stages. This Tianhui Town Lao Guanshan No. 3 Han Tomb, a **** unearthed 951 branches of medical slips and a well-made human body meridian lacquer man. Judging from the fonts on them, there are clerical scripts and small seals, which should come from different periods and different people's hands.
There are many references to the name "Myriad" in the medical records, and experts generally believe that "Myriad" refers to "Bianqi", a magpie who was the first to use the term "Bianqi". Therefore, the "Myashi" is equivalent to an explanation of the identity of the medical slips. However, if all these medical slips are from the hand of the magpie, then there are a whole lot of problems to be faced.
At the same time, the magpie appeared in different countries in different places to practice medicine; the magpie's practice of medicine, spanning hundreds of years; what's more, once the "taboo on medicine" of Qi Huanhou, actually on the magpie to increase the title. Such contradictions and contradictions of events have seriously impacted people's previous knowledge of Bian Magpie. Moreover, the records of different history books on the image and character of the magpie are too different.
For example, in "Bian Magpie Meets Duke Cai Huan", Bian Magpie is a person who treats as he pleases; when Duke Cai Huan does not listen to his advice, he does not take the initiative to treat him and runs away on his own initiative when he realizes that Cai Huan's medicine is ineffective. However, in "Strategies of the Warring States", when Bian Magpie saw that King Wu of Qin did not listen to his advice, he predicted the rise and fall of the Qin state, and, like a lobbyist, urged King Wu of Qin to accept medical treatment, not at all like a healer who ruled according to his heart. This is a huge difference in character, so people have to have doubts: magpie, in the end, is a person, or a pronoun?
In ancient times, magpies were also known as "medical magpies", meaning medical good news. If the word "bian magpie" is used as a synonym for the god doctor, then all the above problems will be solved. Or, people would refer to Bian Magpie and Bian Magpie's disciples as Bian Magpie; or, as long as there was a highly skilled doctor, the people of that period would cheer: "Bian Magpie is coming!" Perhaps, in the minds of the ancients, the magpie was not a specific person, but the deification of the skilled doctor, embodied in the mood of the ordinary people who longed for the "cure".
The story of the magpies was selected for inclusion in the textbook, "The Magpie Meets the Duke of Cai Huan". In the article, Bian Magpie saw Cai Huan Gong four times and concluded that Cai Huan Gong's condition was worsening just by looking at him, and Cai Huan Gong died of his illness because he didn't listen to Bian Magpie's advice. This story is taken from Han Fei Zi (韩非子-喻老), and even though its educational significance does not lie in medicine, it does show the superb medical skills of Bian Magpie. (In the "Records of the Grand Historian", the name "Duke Huan of Cai" is recorded as "Marquis Huan of Qi", but there is no "Marquis Huan of Qi" in history.)
This story was chosen for inclusion in the textbook to tell us all that we should face the reality and the crisis head on, and not to avoid treating the disease. However, if the magpie doesn't even exist, is it really appropriate to include it in the textbook? Perhaps it is out of these concerns that experts have chosen to remove the story of Bian Magpie from textbooks. However, regardless of whether or not the magpies really existed, or whether or not the magpies were not a single person, but a group of people, I think the story of the magpies still has value.
Because the magpie (or the magpies), represented the ancient people's hope for a cure. We will remember that during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, there was a Yue man of the Qin clan who was a highly skilled healer and often practiced medicine in the area of Zhao, similar to the Bian Magpie of the Regulus period, and was known as "Bian Magpie".
We will remember that in ancient China, there was a magician, Bian Magpie, who had excellent medical skills and was able to cure all diseases. We can see that in the Han statue "Bian Magpie Practicing Medicine" in the Confucius Temple in Qufu, Bian Magpie appears with a human head and a bird's body, giving acupuncture to a man, and is accompanied by a mulberry tree with five magpies.
The magpie, has become a symbol. In that era when medical level, medical equipment and medical thinking were all underdeveloped, Bian Magpie used looking at color, listening to sound, writing shadow and cutting pulse to see the disease (the early "looking, hearing, questioning and cutting"); he was proficient in internal, external, gynecology, pediatrics, the five senses and other disciplines, and he was the earliest doctor in our country to judge the disease by pulse diagnosis, and put forward the theory of pulse diagnosis, which has been followed by the later generations. ......
He is the ancestor of China's doctors and the world's "Ancient Physician". The story of the magpie may be false or true, full of controversy, but in the minds of many people, the word magpie has become a symbol of Chinese culture and Chinese medicine, and will remain in people's hearts in another form.